The present invention relates to the handling of small parts and more particularly to a method and apparatus for reducing or eliminating the need for handling such parts on an individual basis thereby significantly reducing the cost of a manufacturing process involving such parts. In an exemplary preferred embodiment the handling of small plastic activating keys for an electronic calculator will be described.
The advent of the small hand-held personal calculator has been spectacular and price competition keen. Typically keys for such calculators are injection molded often in more than one stage to provide plastic indicia of the function or numeral corresponding to a particular key in a color contrast to the plastic key background. The keys are generally rectangular or square with a peripheral flange or shoulders to hold them in place in a spring loaded manner beneath a calculator face plate and may have contact activating protuberances extending generally in their direction of actuation. For economy several keys, either identical or dissimilar, are molded simultaneously in a multicavity mold and when removed therefrom the several keys are all still attached to a common sprue. This sprue or waste portion formed in the passageways leading from the material source to the individual key cavities is generally somewhat tree-like in configuration with individual keys at the ends of the branches. Individual keys or buttons are then broken free from the sprue, any extending sprue remnant removed and keys of like type stored or packaged in bulk for subsequent hand sorting and placement into a matrix arrangement where each type key occupies its ultimate calculator position. These several slow hand tasks add significantly to the cost of such calculators.